An 18-year-old Palm Coast man was arrested after he was accused of having sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl multiple times, according to the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office.
Josiah J. Morales said he thought the girl was 15, which the sheriff’s office noted is still under Florida’s legal age of consent of 18.
The investigation began May 9, after a school guidance counselor informed an FCSO school resource deputy that the girl said she had sexual intercourse with Morales.
The FCSO Major Case Unit and the Florida Department of Children and Families began investigations. The girl told detectives she met Morales a few weeks earlier at a mutual friend’s home.
The girl said Morales expressed an interest in her to her friend, who told him the girl was only 13 and would not engage in sex with him, according to the press release.
Despite being told she was 13, Morales got her phone number from his friend’s cellphone and began communicating with her.
Morales invited the girl back to his friend’s residence, “where he convinced them to have sex with him multiple times. On at least one occasion, the victim felt coerced to have sex with Morales,” the release states.
Morales admitted to having sex with the girl.
Morales was arrested on Aug. 13 and charged with lewd or lascivious battery of a victim 12 years of age or older but less than 16 years of age.
Morales was being held Aug. 14 at the Sheriff Perry Hall Inmate Detention Facility on a $30,000 bond.
“I commend this victim for speaking up and reporting this incident to their guidance counselor,” Sheriff Rick Staly stated in a release. “This man took advantage of a young victim. I commend our detectives in the Major Case Unit and our partners at both the DCF and the State Attorney’s Office for their collaborative work on this case so that we could arrest him and take him to the Green Roof Inn before he had more opportunities to take the innocence away from more young victims.”
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: 18-year-old Palm Coast man arrested, accused of having sex with 13-year-old
Reporting by Frank Fernandez, Daytona Beach News-Journal / The Daytona Beach News-Journal
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